Animal Liberation Leagues were a network of animal rights organizations active in the UK in the 1980s. Whereas the Animal Liberation Front specialized in clandestine activity, mainly masked, at night, and involving small numbers of people, the Animal Liberation Leagues consisted of coordinated raids, or 'invasions', by a large number of people, mainly carried out during the day. [1] One journalist described the Animal Liberation Leagues as "a sophisticated...development in the move to direct action". [2] Raids were often carried out at the same time as legal demonstrations.
The Central Animal Liberation League (CALL) was an animal rights organisation based in central England that was active during the 1980s. Over a hundred animals were taken by this organisation, mainly from centres of animal experimentation. They also took documentation and video footage. The slogan of the CALL was "Through The Door When They Least Expect It".
The Eastern Animal Liberation League (EALL) was based in the East of England.
The main action of the EALL took place in August 1984. Unilever research laboratories in Bedford was stormed by over two hundred animal rights activists and the same time as a legal demonstration was taking place at the front. 25 people were later convicted of conspiracy to burgle and sentenced to a total of 41 years.
One of those convicted was Jill Phipps, who was killed in 1995 during a demonstration, when she was run over by a lorry carrying calves for the live export trade. Jill, along with her mother Nancy Phipps, and her sister Lesley Phipps, were all convicted in the Unilever case. Jill's sentence was suspended because she had gotten pregnant, but her mother and sister were sent to HM Prison Holloway. [3]
These heavy losses to the animal rights movement led to the winding up of the EALL and a change in tactics.
The Northern Animal Liberation League was active in the north of England. Their campaigning slogan was, "Over the wall when they least expect it". [4] It specialised in mass daytime invasion of places such as animal laboratories to obtain photographs and other information, and in some cases animals were also removed.
The South East Animal Liberation League (SEALL) existed in the southeast of England. It specialised in mass daylight raids of places such as animal research laboratories.
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) was an international animal rights campaign to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Europe's largest contract animal-testing laboratory. HLS tests medical and non-medical substances on around 75,000 animals every year, from rats to primates. It has been the subject of several major leaks or undercover investigations by activists and reporters since 1989.
Barry Horne was an English animal rights activist. He became known around the world in December 1998, when he engaged in a 68-day hunger strike in an effort to persuade the government to hold a public inquiry into animal testing, something the Labour Party had said it would do before it came to power in 1997. The hunger strike took place while Horne was serving an 18-year sentence for planting incendiary devices in stores that sold fur coats and leather products, the longest sentence handed down to any animal rights activist by a British court.
The Animal Rights Militia (ARM) is a banner used by animal rights activists who engage in direct action utilizing a diversity of tactics that ignores the Animal Liberation Front's policy of taking all necessary precautions to avoid harm to human life.
Shamrock Farm was the United Kingdom's only non-human primate importation and quarantine centre, located in Small Dole, near Henfield in West Sussex. The centre, owned by Bausch and Lomb and run by Charles River Laboratories, Inc. for Shamrock (GB) Ltd, provided animals to various laboratories and universities for use in animal testing. It was Europe's largest supplier of primates to laboratories, and held up to 350 monkeys at a time.
In 1985, a raid took place at a laboratory belonging to the University of California, Riverside (UCR) that resulted in the removal of a monkey by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). This monkey, called Britches, was a stump-tailed macaque who was born into a breeding colony at UCR. He was removed from his mother at birth, had his eyelids sewn shut, and had an electronic sonar device attached to his head—a Trisensor Aid, an experimental version of a blind travel aid, the Sonicguide—as part of a three-year sensory-deprivation study involving 24 infant monkeys. The experiments were designed to study the behavioral and neural development of monkeys reared with a sensory substitution device.
On 1 February 1995, English animal rights activist Jill Phipps was crushed to death under a lorry during a protest to stop the air export of live calves for veal near Coventry Airport.
Gillian Rose Langley is a British scientist and writer who specialises in alternatives to animal testing and animal rights. She was, from 1981 until 2009, the science director of the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research, a medical research charity developing non-animal research techniques. She was an anti-vivisection member of the British government's Animal Procedures Committee for eight years, and has worked as a consultant on non-animal techniques for the European Commission, and for animal protection organizations in Europe and the United States. Between 2010 and 2016 she was a consultant for Humane Society International.
The international trade in primates sees 32,000 wild non-human primates (NHPs) trapped and sold on the international market every year. They are sold mostly for use in animal testing, but also for food, for exhibition in zoos and circuses, and for private use as companion animals.
Experiments involving non-human primates (NHPs) include toxicity testing for medical and non-medical substances; studies of infectious disease, such as HIV and hepatitis; neurological studies; behavior and cognition; reproduction; genetics; and xenotransplantation. Around 65,000 NHPs are used every year in the United States, and around 7,000 across the European Union. Most are purpose-bred, while some are caught in the wild.
Nafovanny in Vietnam is the largest captive-breeding primate facility in the world, supplying long-tailed macaques to animal testing laboratories, including Huntingdon Life Sciences in the UK and Covance in Germany.
This timeline of Animal Liberation Front (ALF) actions describes the history, consequences and theory of direct action on behalf of animals by animal liberation activists using, or associated with the ALF.
The University of Minnesota runs a number of studies involving non-human primates, most notably research into drug addiction. The studies have attracted the attention of local and national animal rights groups, most especially the drug addiction studies of Marilyn Carroll, which she performs on primates, rats, and mice.
The Consort beagles campaign was founded in 1996 by British animal rights activists Greg Avery and Heather James, with a view to closing Consort Kennels in Hereford, a commercial breeder of beagles for animal testing laboratories.
The Western Animal Rights Network (WARN) first appeared in 2005 as a coalition for animal rights groups in the West of England and South Wales and acted as a news service for animal rights demos and action reports.
The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is an international, leaderless, decentralized political and social resistance movement that advocates and engages in what it claims non-violent direct action in protest against incidents of animal cruelty. It originated in Britain in the 1970s from the Bands of Mercy. Participants state it is a modern-day Underground Railroad, removing animals from laboratories and farms, destroying facilities, arranging safe houses, veterinary care and operating sanctuaries where the animals subsequently live. Critics have labelled them as eco-terrorists.
Mel Brown is a British landscape gardener and animal rights activist who rose to public prominence due to a planned bombing campaign aimed at preventing the construction of a new research laboratory at Oxford University. He was the co-founder in 2004, with Robert Cogswell, of SPEAK, The Voice for the Animals, a campaign to stop animal testing in Britain, which is focused on opposition to a new animal laboratory at Oxford University.
Heather Nicholson is a British animal rights activist.
Harlan Sprague Dawley Inc. was a supplier of animals and other services to laboratories for the purpose of animal testing. It provided pre-clinical research tools and services for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agrochemicals, industrial chemical, and food industries.
The campaign against Highgate Rabbit Farm, also known as the Close Highgate Farm campaign, is a series of direct actions by anti-vivisection activists. Highgate Rabbit Farm in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire in England is licensed by the Home Office to breed rabbits and ferrets for animal-testing facilities, including Huntingdon Life Sciences. Actions have included a raid by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and an arson claimed by the Militant Forces Against HLS. The ALF raid in 2008 saw 129 rabbits removed and £100,000-worth of damage to property. The campaign has been linked to activists involved in Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC).